Late soldier’s Victoria family outraged by general’s medal snub Katie DerosaJuly 9, 2015A Victoria couple is outraged after Canada’s chief of defence staff wrote to them saying their son’s suicide wasn’t linked to his military service and suggesting he shouldn’t have received any service medals after his death.

Sheila Fynes said she and her husband, Shaun, were angry and offended on July 6 when they opened a letter from Gen. Tom Lawson that said a military board of inquiry found their son Cpl. Stuart Langridge’s suicide “was not attributable to military service.”

“This would normally have precluded his eligibility for the Sacrifice Medal and any other benefits,” said the June 22 letter, signed by Lawson and sent to the couple’s Victoria address.

“The one thing that we had left, the only thing they had given us, and now you’re saying he didn’t deserve them?” Fynes told the Times Colonist.

Fynes said the letter was “petty, mean, vindictive and disheartening.”

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In a statement, Lawson went on the defensive, accusing the Ottawa Citizen, which first reported the story, of “grossly misrepresenting” the letter....

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